Effect of Protease Suplementation on the Performance of Laying Chicken

An experiment was conducted to examine the addition of protease as feed additive in 32 weeks old laying chickens.A total of 60 Nera Black laying birds were allotted to five treatments,six replicates of two(2) birds each in the replicate,the diets were formulated to contain 16% Crude Protein in treatment one (1) which was the control diet&the Crude Protein contained in treatments two(2)&three(3) was reduced by 5%&treatments four 4&five (5) was also reduced by 10%.Birds on the control diet (T1)had no inclusion of protease in their diet,the birds on treatment two (T2) also had no inclusion of protease in their diet while the birds in treatment three (T3) had inclusion of protease,treatment four (T4) had no inclusion of protease while the birds on treatment five (T5) also had an inclusion of protease in their diet.There were no significant differences (P>0.05) among all treatments on feed intake, haugh unit&hen-day egg production (HDEP) of the birds,all the external parameters in each treatment was significantly (P<0.05) different from each other within the treatments.The study showed that reduction of crude protein by 5% &10% and inclusion of protease in the diet had the best result.